Does Atheism Lead to Nihilism?

[Esquilax]

Okay, so if I ask: “Is your evolved sensibilities (or however you want to phrase it) good because it creates morality or because it recognizes morality?" How do you stop the infinite regress? You need a stopping point where it no longer makes any sense to ask whether something creates ultimate morality or recognizes ultimate morality. God is a very plausible stopping point. What is the atheist's?

As I've said maybe a thousand times to you: objective reality. We live in a universe, that universe has a set of defined physical properties, and through those properties we can derive what benefits and harms the thinking agents within that universe, who are required for morality to exist as, outside of the existence of thinking agents, morality has no bearing. No infinite regress, and no further questions need be asked about the basis of morality beyond there, as thinking agents are a necessary condition for morality; you don't got them, you're no longer in a position to have any moral system at all, subjective, objective, or otherwise.

Every time I bring this up, you outright ignore it, or otherwise dismiss it out of hand as "subjective" when it isn't. Reality is not a subjective opinion.

I find it interesting you will criticize belief in God but you wont allow for the standard definition of God: He is ontologically, metaphysically ultimate.

You don't get to just call your definition of god the standard one. There are gods that have been proposed that aren't any kind of ultimate- the Greek gods are a good example of this- and you have no reason to privilege your conception of god over those... aside from the fact that you believe in your conception, which seems to be the only standard you have for whether an idea is good or not.

To describe God's nature as the greatest good is not inconsistent nor a double standard nor fiat axiomatic statement from the blue. The Jews believed this before Plato ever lived.

To say that god's nature is the greatest good does not resolve the Euthyphro Dilemma, and in fact it's circular. You need a basis for good that god's nature is conforming to, or else you're just saying that god is good because god is good; you need to have some concept of what the greatest good is before you can determine if god's nature conforms to that, and if such a concept exists without god, then god is irrelevant to that concept. Conversely, if you don't have such a concept prior to determining god's moral nature, then you are, in fact, merely defining god's nature as the greatest good, and then pretending that you've operated in the reverse.

Every component of the Euthyphro Dilemma is still in play here. How are you going to go? Stick with the circular, fiat assertion you've already made, or admit that what you're saying cannot be true?

Regarding "privileging your own position for no good goddamn reason", I cannot prove God exists any more than you can prove he doesn't. So in a discussion on divergent views of reality, you can expect that my beliefs will contain references to God and I will expect your will not.

The difference being, of course, that I can't just invent new claims out of thin air and pretend that they're proven fact in order to define my way out of any issues others find with my position. I have to stick with realistic things, and my point here is that, if you're going to make claims, you should operate from a realistic epistemic basis, rather than just imagine solutions: if you're going to claim that god is the greatest good, then you're going to need to do more than just assert that, like, say, demonstrating it... which is what the Euthyphro Dilemma asks you to do.

[SteveII]

Okay, so if I ask: “Is your evolved sensibilities (or however you want to phrase it) good because it creates morality or because it recognizes morality?"
How do you stop the infinite regress?

Very simply: Because that's how societies have defined good to be.

Like people have defined what a chair is, and what "wet" is and what "blue" is, so they have defined "good" and "bad" and "evil" and "awesome" and "flying" and "love" and "friend" and "hate" and "information" and "knowledge" and "experience" and "look" and all the myriad words in every conceivable dictionary.

G. E. Moore argues that you cannot define good (like you can a chair)...
...we cannot define "good" by explaining it in other words. We can only point to an action or a thing and say "That is good." Similarly, we cannot describe to a blind person exactly what yellow is. We can only show a sighted person a piece of yellow paper or a yellow scrap of cloth and say "That is yellow."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore

[robvalue]

All just ways to try and get out of the fact that Yahweh is a prize cunt.

[Faith No More]

I just thought I'd throw this out there, but isn't it just insanely ironic that people have defined the entity that is the supposed source of objectivity with such a subjective description like "Greatest conceivable being?"

[robvalue]

You know, I can conceive of a far greater being than the ball bag in the bible. It's not hard. Kenshiro from fist of the North Star would destroy him, and as a bonus wouldn't kill a load of innocent people before the fight.

[Silver]

I just thought I'd throw this out there, but isn't it just insanely ironic that people have defined the entity that is the supposed source of objectivity with such a subjective description like "Greatest conceivable being?"

The theist lacks an adequate imagination if something better than god cannot be conceived.

[robvalue]

If God can do anything, he can make a more powerful God than himself. So he isn't the greatest is he? I can imagine the uber God kicking the spit out of Yahweh's wrinkly face.

[SteveII]

All just ways to try and get out of the fact that Yahweh is a prize cunt.

Just thought I would tell you that I ignore you on purpose and would never answer even a serious or honest question from you. You seem to be a miserable human being. So...keep posting and wasting your time.

[Mudhammam]

G. E. Moore argues that you cannot define good (like you can a chair)...
...we cannot define "good" by explaining it in other words. We can only point to an action or a thing and say "That is good." Similarly, we cannot describe to a blind person exactly what yellow is. We can only show a sighted person a piece of yellow paper or a yellow scrap of cloth and say "That is yellow."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._E._Moore

Are you really taking us back to Socrates? How exactly does "God IS good" help again?

---

You do realize that "goodness" is just a term we use to describe experiences we value more than others, no? And what everyone keeps trying to tell you: it's not exactly mysterious why we can all pretty much agree on basic distinctions between the ideal virtuous person and the very wretched or miserable one.

[GrandizerII]

All just ways to try and get out of the fact that Yahweh is a prize cunt.

Just thought I would tell you that I ignore you on purpose and would never answer even a serious or honest question from you. You seem to be a miserable human being. So...keep posting and wasting your time.

Why? Because he insulted your favorite fictional character? Yahweh is a character that does come off as a monster to many people whose moral standards lead them to be repulsed by such a being.